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Car Seats Save Lives but Are Still Underused

More than 9,000 children under 12 died in motor vehicle accidents from 2002 to 2011, in many cases because they were not properly restrained in child seats or seatbelts.

Though the death rate decreased over those years, to 1.2 per 100,000 children in 2011 from 2.2 in 2002, seatbelts would have saved many more lives, according to a study published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In 2011, 33 percent of children who died in motor vehicle accidents were not buckled in. While only 2 percent of children under age 1 rode unrestrained, 22 percent of those in that age group who died were unbuckled. An estimated 3,308 children under 4 are alive today because they were properly buckled in.

In 2009-10, there were no differences in death rates by age or sex, but black children had a death rate about 46 percent higher than Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. According to the lead author of the report, Erin K. Sauber-Schatz, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one contributing factor is that a higher proportion of black children who died were unrestrained.

“We can do more to help protect our children on the road,” she said “We have to make sure that children are buckled into age- and size-appropriate seats and seatbelts on every trip, no matter how short the trip.”